Document zQ17EQnxe8Makr2gZpnj661Ez

Eliminating Conflicts of Interest. Administrator Pruitt is establishing a policy that if you currently receive dollars from the agency in grant money, you are not eligible to serve on all EPA advisory boards. The Administrator made a commitment to ensure independence from EPA on these boards when they make advisory decisions. Example- Past SAB and CASAC members have received upwards of tens of millions of dollars in grant money over the last 10 years. The previous Administration excluded state and local interests from their boards, ignoring principals of cooperative federalism. For the Science Advisory Connectivity Panel, which was reviewing a highly influential scientific assessment designed to inform EPA's authority under the Clean Water Act and EPA's drafting 2015 WOTUS, EPA did not include state and local experts. For EPA's Fracturing Research Advisory Panel Subcommittee, there were zero individuals representing state/local matters on the actual panel, despite there being multiple state/local nominees to serve on the panel The previous Administration didn't follow the law. S(109)(D)(2)(A) requires CASAC to have 7 members including a physician, a NAS member and a state representative. The previous Administration allowed the same board member to wear multiple roles when serving on the CASAC board - Administrator Pruitt believes this is in contrary to what the law states and will uphold the law by having 3 unique individuals represent these 3 required roles. This confusion of wearing "multiple hats" only deepens the lack of transparency - i.e. which one do you represent if you wear multiple hats? Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00061590-00001